Montana Field Guide

Plants: Pleurocarpous (Vitt 1988), typically growing in dense cushions or interwoven mats, green with yellow or brown tones (Lawton 1971). Stems prostrate to nearly upright, erratically to a little more regularly pinnate, 3-6 cm, ochre; branches 3-15 mm in length, growing initially in one plane; hyalodermis lacking and central strand in attendance; pseudoparaphyllia wide and leafy, few (FNA 2014); cortical stem cells little and with thick walls (Lawton 1971).

Stem Leaves: Upright to curved in sickle-like fashion and turned in one direction, 1.2-1.5 mm in length, to 0.5 mm in width (FNA 2014), cupped below (Lawton 1971), egg-shaped to widely lance-shaped with oblong tendencies, slowly or abruptly tapering to the somewhat short acumen (FNA 2014), the base longer than the acumen (Lawton 1971), not lobed (FNA 2014); leaf edges mostly flat (Lawton 1971) or widely curved back and down to almost flat at the base, almost smooth to finely saw-toothed above; costa with 2 branches; branch leaves akin to stem leaves (FNA 2014).

Leaf Cells: Laminal cells not papillose; medial laminal cells longer and a little narrower than the basal cells, frequently somewhat short and shaped like an ellipse particularly in straight leaves (FNA 2014), frequently porose (Lawton 1971); basal laminal cells porose, not colored; alar cells not colored (FNA 2014), square, the alar area large, usually with 12-15 cells along the margin, seldom reaching 25 (Lawton 1971), and well-delineated, sometimes with several inflated cells at the basal edge (FNA 2014).

Fruit ripens in late summer and early autumn (FNA 2014).

The most dependable characteristic that distinguishes the similar Hypnum cupressiforme from Hypnum vaucheri may be its lance-shaped to filamentous pseudoparaphyllia; those of H. vaucheri are leafy with dull ends (FNA 2014).

Open habitats, stone or soil (usually basic), bottoms of trees, soil, rotting wood. Occurring from lowlands to about 11,480 feet elevation (FNA 2014).

Dioicous, rarely producing sporophytes. Exterior perichaetial bracts bent back and downward; interior perichaetial bracts upright with a thin acumen, pleated. Seta 10-15 mm tall, somewhat red or yellow, smooth. Capsule 1.8-2.2 mm in length, brown, tilted; operculum cone-shaped; exostome teeth 16, with a zigzag line on the outer face, fine lines or ridges below, and papillae above; endostome processes 16, similar in height as the teeth, keeled, cilia present. Calyptra hairless and draping hood-like (FNA 2014).